Defense Minister: Peru and Colombia intelligence agencies share information on ties between rebel groups

Peruvian and Colombian intelligence agencies have cooperated closely by sharing information on an alleged relation between Colombia’s leftist FARC rebels and remnants of the Shining Path insurgency in Peru, Defense Minister Rafael Rey said Monday.

“We work with Colombia in a very efficient manner and I want to thank them for the services they provide and the information is very useful for internal matters,” state-run news agency Andina quoted Rey as saying. Read more…

One soldier killed and another wounded during attack on military base

Peru’s Joint Command of the Armed Forces says one soldier was killed and another wounded when Shining Path guerrillas attacked a military counter-terrorist base Friday morning in the country’s isolated Apurímac and Ene River Valleys, or VRAE.

According to Radio Programas Peru, the rebel group used long range weapons to attack the Bajo Somabeni base in Satipo province, located in the department of Junín and about nine hours east of Lima in Peru’s central Amazon region. Read more…

Former president of Peru’s Supreme Council of Military Justice arrested in Mexico

Mexican police arrested on Thursday the former president of Peru’s Supreme Council of Military Justice, Guido Guevara, who is wanted in Peru for allegations of embezzlement and criminal conspiracy, the office of Mexico’s Attorney General said in a press release. Read more…

Fifteen suspected Shining Path rebels arrested; Peruvian officer killed

Fifteen suspected Shining Path guerrillas were arrested Monday after a confrontation with Peru’s military that killed one officer and left another wounded in the country’s isolated Apurímac and Ene River Valleys, or VRAE. Read more…

Peru army and navy continue with war memorial plans

Retired military and their supporters are going ahead with plans to build a monument to the ‘Defenders of Democracy’, in honor of those who fought against Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA rebels during the 20 years of internal war (1980-2000).  

The monument is planned to be ‘complementary’ to the Museum of the Memory, according to retired General Arnaldo Velarde, president of the Generals and Admirals Association, Adogen. However, unlike the Museum of the Memory, Velarde said, the monument “will not offer a space for reflection on violence but will be a tribute to the fallen”, which include military and police as well as judges, mayors, community leaders and ‘ronderos’ who were murdered by the insurgents.    

 In essence, the monument is the response of military and civilians who do not accept the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report, a two-year study presented in 2003 that recognized that Sendero Luminoso was responsible for at least 54% of the deaths over 20 years but also concluded that the military were responsible for a third of the 69,000 deaths and had committed abuses in their counter-insurgency tactics. The military institutions do not accept the Museum of the Memory focus, despite the fact that the world-class exhibition is being expanded to include a broader spectrum of events.

The plans for the monument are being criticized by political analysts as well as human rights organizations, who see it as an instrument to deepen the divide rather than help the nation as a whole recognize its mistakes and move forward.  

Luis Negreiros, head of the Defense Committee in Congress and leading Apra member, is against what he calls a parallel initiative and believes that the promise by President Alan Garcia and museum commission president Mario Vargas Llosa that the museum will be impartial, is “sufficient guarantee.”

The Memory Museum, said Public Ombudsman Beatriz Merino, “has created a controversy. There are people who are in disagreement, but as Vargas Llosa well said, we can convince those who do not have blood on their hands; but we will never convince those who do, they would prefer a museum to amnesia and not one to memory.”

The minister of Defense, Rafael Rey, a constant critic of the Museum of the Memory commission and its plans, is an enthusiastic supporter of the military monument.  Velarde, however, said that Adogen was not expecting any government financing and will depend entirely on public donations. “We hope to ‘awaken’ the gratitude of the Peruvian people who feel that the military has not been awarded sufficient recognition,” Velarde said. The cost would be under $500,000, he said.

The monument will be built on the east section of the Los Próceres park in Jesús María, across Av. Salaverry from the Army officers club and next to the monument that honors those who fought for Peru’s independence.  The mayor of Jesús Maria, Ricardo Ocrospuma, who earlier this year refused to allow the Museum of the Memory to be built in his district, had granted the permit to use park space for the military monument.    

Meanwhile, architectural plans are being drawn up for the  Museum of the Memory, to be built on land donated by the district of Miraflores, next to the sports complex and stadium at Av. del Ejercito and the access road to the Costa Verde beach drive.  At the donation ceremony two weekends ago with Miraflores mayor Manuel Masías, were the Museum commission members, including former UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who chairs the commission, architect Frederick Cooper Llosa, former Universidad Católica rector, Salomon Lerner, and sociologist Juan Ossio.

Peru forensic team finds bodies of 25 children killed in Ayacucho during internal war

A forensic team last week in Ayacucho unearthed the bodies of 25 schoolchildren and five adults, buried 26 years ago in three mass graves in the village of Umasi, nine hours south of the city of Huamanga, Ayacucho.

The exhumation was ordered by the Ayacucho sub-provincial criminal court, acting on testimonies from five witnesses who stated that army personnel killed the children and adult peasants in November 1983.

According to the witnesses, a column of Sendero Luminoso rebels ‘recruited’ “at least 40 people” in the village of Raccaya on Nov.25, 1983, most of them fourth and fifth grade children (10-12 yrs old), and led them on a forced march for more than 10 hours on a circuitous route to the village at Umasi, where they stopped for food and shelter in the school building (the villages are only about an hour and a half apart on a bad road).

A teacher at Umasi sought help from the military base at Canaria, and at dawn on Nov.27, two military patrols approached the area, surrounded the school and threw grenades into two of the schoolrooms, injuring children and the Senderistas, who surrendered. The witnesses said the military raped girls and women, and shot the children and five adults. Two large graves were dug to bury the bodies, and a third grave was dug to bury two bodies that did not fit into the others.

The forensic team, lead by archaeologist Luis Rueda, found the three graves some 60 m (200 ft) behind the Umasi elementary school. They carried out the excavations last week, Dec.14-20. The first excavation yielded a scene of children’s bodies piled on top of each other. Although the massacre occurred 26 years ago, the bodies are fairly well preserved. Most of the children were dressed in school uniforms.

The massacre occurred a year after the military took over the fight against Sendero Luminoso from the police force. The Canaria base was under orders from the Los Cabitos base in the city of Ayacucho, and under the command of General Clemente Noel, political and military chief of Ayacucho and Huancavelica.  Policies outlined in Lima and executed by officers with no knowledge of Quechua nor  understanding of Andean peoples and customs, led to broad suspicion and harsh counter-insurgency tactics.  Reports by the press of military excesses and extra-judicial executions of civilians were consistently denied by President Fernando Belaunde and the Ministry of Interior.

The situation in Raccaya and Umasi was common during the internal war, in which remote villages were caught in the middle, watched and threatened by Shining Path one day and by the military the next.

The Ayacucho criminal court has reported its preliminary findings to the Public Ombudsman and to Peru’s human rights association, Aprodeh. The forensic team, meanwhile, have begun their laboratory work in the city of Ayacucho to identify the bodies and causes of death.

Lawyer for jailed Shining Path founder charged with “apology for terrorism” over book announcement

Days after the announcement that a book of manuscripts written by Abimael Guzman – the principal architect and strategist of Peru’s Maoist Shining Path guerrilla – would soon be published, Peru filed apology for terrorism charges against Guzman, his lover and Shining Path’s second-in-command Elena Iparraguirre, as well as his editor and lawyer. Read more…

Shining Path rebels attack military base in VRAE, two soldiers left wounded

At least two soldiers were wounded Monday in an attack apparently led by Shining Path guerrillas against a counterinsurgency military base in Peru’s isolated Apurímac and Ene River Valleys, or VRAE.

According to daily El Comercio, an undetermined number of guerrillas positioned in the surrounding hills opened fired on the military base at approximately 8:00 AM.

Corporal Rusbel Andrade Mozombite was shot in the arm and right leg, and private Juan Daniel Tapúllima Salas took a bullet in the back. Both are now in stable condition, and will soon be evacuated from the VRAE to Lima’s Military Hospital.

The Shining Path has been largely dormant since 2000. The once 10,000-strong Maoist rebel group nearly brought Peru’s government to its knees during the 1980s with car bombings, assassinations and brazen attacks on police and military outposts.

Although the group lost momentum following the 1992 capture of its founder Abimael Guzman – who is serving life in a naval prison – sporadic Shining Path attacks still claim lives every year.

The recent spike in deadly attacks is largely attributed to a fresh offensive by the Peruvian military, launched last August by Peru President Alan García.

The VRAE is located at the confluent river borders separating the rural departments of Ayacucho, Cusco and Apurímac. The zone is a hotbed for drug traffickers and their hired guns — mostly remnants of the Maoist Shining Path insurgency — who regularly carry out deadly roadside ambushes against police and assassinate local officials in retaliation for raids on cocaine processing labs.

Shining Path founder Abimael Guzmán seeks “family visit” with lover Elena Iparraguirre

Defense lawyers for Abimael Guzman – the principal architect and strategist of Peru’s Maoist Shining Path insurgency – and his partner Elena Iparraguirre have launched a legal crusade to reunite the couple in prison. Read more…

Two soldiers, four Shining Path guerrillas dead after shootout in Huancavelica

Two soldiers and four suspected Shining Path guerrillas were killed in the highland department of Huancavelica early Wednesday morning after an operation to capture “Comrade Raúl” turned violent, said Defense Minister Rafael Rey. Read more…

Next Page »